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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

As long as you realize the web without ads is a much smaller and less commercial one. That may be fine with you. But a lot of things hundreds of millions of people use every day would have to go away. Subscriptions can't replace ads, as individuals don't have nearly as much discretionary money to spend as companies have in their advertising budgets. We've already given them that money when we bought our groceries, and gas, and paid our bills for rent, internet, TV, phones, insurance, etc. It's not our bank accounts any more to reallocate to Google Maps or our favorite websites instead.

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The web is far too large, and far too commercial -- adtech have forced commerce into fucking everything, and fucking ruined it. Without ads, a lot of things hundreds of millions of people use wouldn't go away, they'd reduce to a more sustainable number of companies and products. The remaining products and services would have to work harder to be better to compete and attract custom. Your new startup might have to offer a genuine improvement or innovation to get traction...

As an example every single Amazon or web product or service search results in dozens to thousands of irrelevant, shoddy and worthless products and services that are far closer to an outright scam than something to use. That's without considering the vast array of true scams and fakes.

A web without ads would have a chance of being useful once again, rather than every single click being an opportunity to part me from more money. Perhaps with suitable heavy regulation we could have the best of both worlds, more like newspaper advertising of old. Just "enough" non-invasive, non-tracking, non-JS ads to provide information on new services and products, but with enough demands of honesty, escrow good behaviour deposits, or whatever constraints you can conceive to keep all advertisers well behaved.

> As long as you realize the web without ads is a much smaller and less commercial one.

This is fine. People should make web pages because they have something to say, not because they want to make money. Since the advertisers can stop supporting a site, they effectively become the arbiters of right and wrong on the internet. Anything paid for by ads is inherently worse and less trustworthy than independent creations and platforms because they must necessarily be advertiser-friendly.

I fully agree, and furthermore, I think that if ad-supported sites were wiped out, the people who genuinely cared about the content would come out and make a replacement with just the useful content. People who have a need find a way.

Right now I can't think of any ad-supported site that I critically need. It could all go away and my web experience would probably be better for it.

You realize the entire purpose of HN is to advertise jobs for YC companies?

I don't need HN critically, and there are alternatives.

Even if I did, let me clarify something. When I go to amazon.com and start looking for pens, I don't really consider the product listings to be ads at that point, even though each is obviously advertising a product. The listing is the content I am there for. If I go to a company's website to learn about their products, they are clearly advertising their own (first party) products. I'm fine with that.

Note that there is a difference between "an ad" and advertising. Characteristic of ads is that they are not the content you're there for. The real content is independent of "an ad", and you could block or remove ads and the real content would not suffer. Characteristic of ads is that they are not the topic of the site/content/video you're reading/watching (they might relate to the same subject matter, but they are not the topic). Also characteristic of ads is that they're advertising third party products/services, which again have little to do with the actual content.

If you removed a company's products from their own website, or the products from amazon's listing, then you'd be removing the content I'm specifically after. Does not fill my criteria for "an ad."

Now as to how this pertains to HN: HN was specifically created for startup-related links. So if they're advertising startup jobs here, they are very much posting the kind of content users would come here for. That would be actual content, not ads. Also, like a company advertising their own products on their own website, I think it is quite appropriate for YC to advertise companies they've funded here.

How would you categorize Computer Shopper back in the day? Most people bought them for the advertising not the content.

The problem with this argument is that big tech companies make ridiculous margins that are not necessary for their businesses to be sustainable.

People can afford to fund good online services at the level of google search (for example), but they can’t afford to make google wildly profitable.

That’s fine with me, it’s just VC culture and SV that has a problem with it.

I don’t want Facebook and Google brokering my ads, I want licensed companies who have to tell me exactly what information about me they have and are selling, and let me edit that. Regulation can achieve this.

99% of all web pages are noise, solely created to extract as much as possible out of ads and trackers. The internet would be a smaller but far far better place without them.

> We've already given them that money when we bought our groceries, and gas, and paid our bills for rent, internet, TV, phones, insurance, etc.

I expect the goal of people advocating for less advertising is to stop giving them that money on a going-forward basis.

That's not something we have any control over, is it? Whether it's allocated to internet or some other channel, these companies are going to advertise to acquire and retain customers, and that advertising cost is baked into their prices. If a new federal law was passed banning all advertising on the internet, I doubt Ford will drop the MSRP of the F-150, or that the price of a bar of Proctor & Gamble soap will change.

>Subscriptions can't replace ads, as individuals don't have nearly as much discretionary money to spend as companies have in their advertising budgets

Search ought to be a replacement. Imagine a site that makes a snapshot of other sites and then anyone can type a search request in it and follow the relevant link. That would replace ads since you get your clients for free. Just build the best electronic marketplace and everyone will visit it by themselves.

This worked to some extent and then stopped because people have what they think themselves they need, and the “commercial” part means someone pushing unnecessary crap down their throats. Losing that part is fine for everyone except these wandering commivoyagers.

Subscriptions do not work for most content makers because the content they make is consumed out of boredom instead of need.

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